Hops Rhizomes

Midwest Supply is taking orders for Hop Rhizomes to ship out in April.  I'm excited to start growing some.  My HOA (don't get me started) won't allow any fruiting plant in the view of the public.  So I figure the best way to utilize the space is with edible flowers.  I think they are pretty, and the HOA will never know any better.  On an aside, I am also doing edible landscaping elsewhere with blueberries, plum, peach, pomegranate and blackberry in the back yard and Silverado Sage along with the hops up front.

Here is a link to their site, if you'd like to join me on this one.

I threw down for six of the cascade rhizomes, and I'm about to go out and do some rearranging of the flower bed this morning to accommodate them.  Time to brew some coffee first.

Fun with Yeast

So I finally got a magnetic stir plate.  After years of not being able to justify spending the 50 bucks for some reason.  My first impression is that it seems to help my process, but it is also just plain freaking cool.  I feel like some kind of mad scientist with it sitting on my work bench next to me as I type this.  Thankfully, for you all, I am only using my mad scientist powers for good. The pursuit of better beer!

 

So there is the first usage.  I used it to bring back to life a smack pack of yeast I'd had in the fridge since October...  Which is waaaay to long.  For the uninitiated, Brewing yeast does not hold up very long in a dormant state.  At least not that long, without some special considerations taken into account.  So I was impressed, and used the results in a cherry chocolate porter I'm concocting.  

Round 2:

And here we are with an English Ale Yeast from Wyeast.  I've got it in a 1.020 gravity starter, which is basically, 800ml of filtered water, and two table spoons of wild local honey.  The plan is to create a "Wild Honey Oat" brew.  Which will not only be me trying to pass a braggot off as a beer, but it's my second attempt at gluten free brewing.  Maybe this one won't taste like a glass of molasses.  Stay tuned for future awesomeness.

I keep bees, and they keep me.

I picked up a nuc from a local bee maker a year and a half ago with great dreams of producing my own honey for meads and wheat beers.  Honey, of course, being the most expensibe fermentable on the market.  And I've mostly just let the Bees be since then.  Deciding it was better to let them get established.  Well, I finally took a frame from them, that yielded me a quart of honey, and I was ecstatic.  Meanwhile, I've spent the last year contemplating the keeping of bees and the idea of letting them keep them selves and I've decided that while bad for production, I'm going to be switching to top bar hives and start practicing the organic small cell style of keeping.  Thus having a hobby that takes less time out of my week and is all around better for my thousands of little friends.  I really love the bees, I think I could have hundreds of hives and still want more.  Oh and, Bee Suits are for chumps. 

In other news, now that the holidays are over and I've gotten a shipping issue sorted out, there's going to be much goings on in the next few weeks at the brewery.